Who is the best teacher in film and television?

Also: who is the most overrated?

Folks - if you’re headed to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics annual conference this next week, please save the date (Friday 9/30) and time (12:45PM) for a live taping of my podcast Math Teacher Lounge with Bethany Lockhart Johnson.

Because the conference is next door to Hollywood this year, Bethany and I will spend part of our time answering the question “who is the best teacher from movies or TV?”

To help us, we’ll be chatting with one (1) special guest analyst, and we have also invited eight (8) luminaries from math education in the US—some of your favorite educators, coaches, and researchers—to nominate their favorite teacher from the big and small screen. 

They’ll make their case and the audience will help us settle the question in a bracket-style competition. Ideally, we’ll learn a lot about the difference between good teaching and cinematic teaching along the way.

I’m told the room only holds ~100. If you can’t make it for whatever reason, a) I’ll miss you–yes, you, personally, b) we’ll be recording the show and posting it to our podcast shortly afterwards. So go ahead and subscribe!

In the meantime, let me hear from you in the comments. What’s your case for the best teacher from movies or TV? I’d be very interested in your case for the most overrated teacher from movies or TV as well.

What Else?

Here is where else you’ll find me at NCTM next week:

• September 28

  • 9:30-4:00PM. Desmos Classroom Day. A full day of learning about math, education, and Desmos technology. I’m told that we’re closing down registration soon for this one.

  • 6:00-9:00PM. Math Trivia Happy Hour is back, folks, hosted by yours truly and Stephanie Blair. Registration is closing soon here as well.

• September 29

  • 11:00AM-12:00PM. I’ll be at the Infinity Bar looking to hang out with anyone who wants to stop by and trade stories and ideas about math education.

  • 6:00PM. ShadowCon is back with four incredible speakers who will be sharing a brief talk that’ll kick off some learning experiences after the conference.

• September 30

  • 12:45-2:00PM. Math Teacher Lounge live show! You already know.

  • 2:00-3:00PM. Come hang out with me at the Amplify booth.

• October 1

  • 8:00-9:00AM. My talk. Math Without Mistakes. Last day of the conference and super early. We’ll see who’s really committed to the children here, won’t we. I’ll bring coffee, though. How do you take yours?

And all throughout you’ll find me in different sessions looking around for ideas that stake out some kind of new territory in math education, that adapt ideas from another tradition in some compelling way, that seem driven by prerogatives other than just neuron enhancement. If you have sessions you're excited to attend, or excited to offer, let us know in the comments as well.